When do you normally first enter a park most days you are there?

[mom-2greatkids]

Rope drop to park close every day! We LOVE the parks!!!!!

 

[kathy884]

Before rope drop -- two magical hours (not EMH) we are offsite people, but the first two hours of the day seem to have low crowds. It's downhill after that with heavier crowds. I also only do one day at a Disney park per year so like to get as much as possible out of my $100+ ticket.

 

[Meriweather]

Before park opens, but not EMH

 

[KristinU]

We vary: rope drop a couple of our days, later entry on others. If we've stayed late for a night show one night, we do a leisurely breakfast/resort morning the next day and then go to the parks when we feel ready. Rope drop feels special to us and not a chore, and varying helps us to appreciate the value in rope-dropping.

 

[KenHutch]

We are there waiting on rope drop each day (well me and the girls are).

 

[Moliphino]

We usually get to the parks around 10 and stay until park close (usually in another park). Given that I would usually want to wake up after 10 on a day off, that's early for me.

 

[dreiwhit]

We get there about 20-30 minutes before RD.

 

[supernova]

I refuse to rope drop a park. I'm not standing in a line and not moving for an hour or more, when I can just show up ten minutes after the park opens and walk right in. I value my health and my sleep. Depending on the park, I will try to take advantage of morning EMH.

 

[mombrontrent]

Wow I’m actually amazed how many people actually are there for rope drop everyday! My family would never do that, we have never made a rope drop in four trips. I have teens who love to sleep, they can sleep until mid afternoon here at home so I feel lucky if I get them out the door before noon on vacation and I consider getting to the park by 11:00 a great early start to the day for me!

 

[Klayfish]

Somewhere between 9:15 am and 6:00pm. Seriously. We're never going to show up at the gates before the park opens, we think it's a waste. But we may show up right around opening, we may show up at lunch, we may show up at dinner. Just depends...we very much do things on the fly.

 

[Spencer Wright]

...We're never going to show up at the gates before the park opens, we think it's a waste....

I totally agree with this. We used to be there 30-45 minutes prior to opening, but showing up 10 minutes beforehand does just as well. I still like to show up a little prior to opening, with mid-day fast passes.

 

[mi*vida*loca]

Wow I’m actually amazed how many people actually are there for rope drop everyday! My family would never do that, we have never made a rope drop in four trips. I have teens who love to sleep, they can sleep until mid afternoon here at home so I feel lucky if I get them out the door before noon on vacation and I consider getting to the park by 11:00 a great early start to the day for me!

My teen and preteen easily sleep until noon at home but they actually want to get up early at WDW. We don’t show up an hour before. We usually get to the gates within 10 minutes of opening. We don’t do it everyday. For our next trip i have 8 day PH. We will do 4-5 RDs with a few late starts, MVMCP with no AM park and a rest day. We also do midday breaks and my kids have no issues napping but They usually opt for pool time.

I will say my kids like to get up early on any vacation we go on. They like to take advantage of being somewhere and seeing the sights. Our last trip was an all inclusive and we were up and at the pool/beach/excursion by 9-10 every morning. They feel like they can sleep at home.

 

[SaintsManiac]

It varies from day to day.

 

[mombrontrent]

My teen and preteen easily sleep until noon at home but they actually want to get up early at WDW. We don’t show up an hour before. We usually get to the gates within 10 minutes of opening. We don’t do it everyday. For our next trip i have 8 day PH. We will do 4-5 RDs with a few late starts, MVMCP with no AM park and a rest day. We also do midday breaks and my kids have no issues napping but They usually opt for pool time.

I will say my kids like to get up early on any vacation we go on. They like to take advantage of being somewhere and seeing the sights. Our last trip was an all inclusive and we were up and at the pool/beach/excursion by 9-10 every morning. They feel like they can sleep at home.

I wish mine were so easily motivated. This summer we went on vacation to Montreal for five days and after the first couple days of waiting past noon for everyone to get up a couple of days I just went out on my own in the mornings. We had a condo right downtown so it was easy to just walk around. I don’t understand why they would want to spend there vacation time sleeping either, seems like a waste but they stay up late and like to sleep late.

 

[Spencer Wright]

I wish mine were so easily motivated. This summer we went on vacation to Montreal for five days and after the first couple days of waiting past noon for everyone to get up a couple of days I just went out on my own in the mornings. We had a condo right downtown so it was easy to just walk around. I don’t understand why they would want to spend there vacation time sleeping either, seems like a waste but they stay up late and like to sleep late.

I have always been someone who vacations 25 hours of the day I'm there if I can. We went a few years ago (to WDW) with other family, including a teenage step brother and sister who slept ALL day!

I could not do that if I tried. I seriously do not understand that at all. But I certainly applaud your patience waiting till noon; my sister and I didn't bother waiting at all. Time is a lot of money in WDW!!

 

[mombrontrent]

I have always been someone who vacations 25 hours of the day I'm there if I can. We went a few years ago (to WDW) with other family, including a teenage step brother and sister who slept ALL day!

I could not do that if I tried. I seriously do not understand that at all. But I certainly applaud your patience waiting till noon; my sister and I didn't bother waiting at all. Time is a lot of money in WDW!!

My son can and will sleep all day and by all day I mean he can sleep until 4:00. We don’t wait on him anymore, he missed Dollywood one year as well as other attractions on that trip. He missed pretty much the entire Montreal trip because we just leave with out him now and truthfully he didn’t care. He didn’t bother coming at all on out last WDW trip and isn’t invited on our next one!

 

[mco65]

I refuse to rope drop a park. I'm not standing in a line and not moving for an hour or more, when I can just show up ten minutes after the park opens and walk right in. I value my health and my sleep. Depending on the park, I will try to take advantage of morning EMH.

Is an hour before Rope drop the new norm? We always rope drop or do EMH.. but we typically never arrive an hour before. we typically get there 15 min before RD.. 30 max..

 

[Klayfish]

Is an hour before Rope drop the new norm? We always rope drop or do EMH.. but we typically never arrive an hour before. we typically get there 15 min before RD.. 30 max..

I think it means a lot of different things to different people. I do think a lot of people show up at the gates 30, 45, 60+ minutes early. It's just our own personal opinions, but we don't see the value in it. If we have an "early" morning for us, the earliest we get there is right at park open time. We figure we only give up one extra ride compared to the person who was an hour early, so it's just not something we want to do. **EDIT** I want to be sure to add that I don't think it's "wrong" to show up an hour early. That one extra ride the super early bird gets over me could be FoP or 7DMT, so I can understand why people do it. It's just not worth it to us.

 

[RustManFan]

Park opening if we get moving on time. Never have done EMH... for our early November trip we made sure we could get in around 3 rides before our first FP.... (scheduled around 10am)

 

[ajwolfe]

Based on all your threads about this topic, I really think you need to stop stressing out about something you don't even know will be an issue. You haven't even asked the family to go with you yet so you never know what they will do.
That being said we are usually in a park by 9 or 10 BUT we are park closers. My kids prefer to sleep a bit in the morning and stay up till the wee hours and have been like this since toddlers. We don't do afternoon breaks as they are a waste for us personally. We have zero desire to do rope drop and stand in line with the masses to be crushed on the way in - we've done this a couple times for early morning ADR or pirate make over appointments and it just isn't our thing at all.
I honestly think you need to just change your strategy up to work with the family you are taking.